NDF slams continuing puppetry in Tubbataha damageJanuary 22, 2013

As climate change bring about continuing heavy floods that batter thousands of poor families in Davao city and elsewhere in Southern Mindanao, the National Democratic Front Southern Mindanao urges the people to struggle against its root cause: US imperialism and US military intervention in the country.

In fact, the recent damage caused by the US Navy’s USS Guardian in the country’s precious Tubbataha Reef and the Aquino government’s clemency, if not,kid’s glove treatment is revealing. It highlights the latter’s puppetry to the worst destroyers of our environment and culprit of global warming —transnational corporations led by US along with Japan and European Union that brought about the roughly 80% of the carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere.

The latest environmental crime committed by the US Navy adds up to other environmental offenses by US imperialism and kowtowed by the Aquino government: massive denudation of Philippine forests for continued corporate logging, large-scale open-pit mining, widespread land use conversion due to commercial agriculture, and rapid expansion of coal-fired power plants.

Poor cities and provinces in Southern Mindanao and elsewhere in the country suffer from global warming and climate change. Women, children, urban poor, peasants and workers face the inundation brought about by extreme weather changes and rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Data point out that the US is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. Since 1950, the US has emitted a cumulative total of roughly 50.7 billion tons of carbon. It accounts for 4% of the world’s population and yet it emits 23% of global carbon dioxide. It owns 162 TNCs from among the global 500 TNCs. Data shows that TNCs control extractive industries that have irreversible effects on the environment, such as metal mining and energy extraction. There are 10 TNCs controlling 41% of world production of oil and gas; 20 TNCs control the sales of hazardous pesticides and other agricultural chemicals, while in general, TNCs control 80% of land worldwide planted with cash crops.

In all this, the Aquino government and local reactionary counterparts treat floods and typhoons like Pablo as mere natural calamities and opportunities for corruption-laden finance generation for relief and rehabilitation program. It ignores the widespread calls locally and globally tohold the US as responsible for the irreversible global warming. Onslaught of imperialist plunder in poor countries like the Philippines and the unabated capitalist production in US’ own country have worsened the climate change that was already felt in the 1970s. It has not only brought about great disasters like typhoon Sendong and typhoon Pablo. It has also affected the reduction of agricultural harvests, epidemics and disease—problems that exacerbate the already unbearable situation of peasants and workers in the country.

In the light of the Tubbataha damage by a US Navy warship and previously, the use of US jet fighters and unmanned drones in our airspace, the NDF-Southern Mindanao calls on the people to persevere in the campaign to end US military dominance in the country. US troops continue to make the country as launching pad for its continuing hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. And among its corollary impact is the massive destruction of our environment by imperialist plunderers that the US military continues to protect.

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